


For that which is not in me

by baehj2915



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Erik's understandable trust issues, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Unclear motives, Unresolved problems, Very Sentimental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:26:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set somewhere sort of early on in the bromance world tour, Charles and Erik are exploring the limits of their abilities and the limits of what they're willing to do for each other. No problems solved. Based on a quote prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For that which is not in me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wagnetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagnetic/gifts).



> I asked Wagnetic to prompt me to prove to myself if I could still write or not. (Verdict still out.)
> 
> But I said, "Anything you want. It could be specific or even just a few words. I just need to get out of this little block. So whatever." She responded with, "JULIUS CEASAR LIKE A BOSS! BLAMMO!" And I was like: D:
> 
> So I hope it worked out well enough. 
> 
> These are the quotes that inspired this fic:
> 
>  _“And since you know you cannot see yourself,  
>  so well as by reflection, I, your glass,  
> will modestly discover to yourself,  
> that of yourself which you yet know not of.”_
> 
> and
> 
>  
> 
> _“Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,  
>  That you would have me seek into myself  
> For that which is not in me?”_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ~*~

“You’ve got to test yourself in little ways,” Charles said, his words tinged with a somewhat nasal mumble that usually presented when he was drinking a little more seriously. “You’ve got—it’s the little fiddly bits that are far more difficult than the big massive sweeps are. They always are, but no one likes the little fiddly bits. That’s where the control really is though.” 

He nodded with finality and took another drink of his scotch. 

Erik blinked, let the weight of the words wash over him, and said, “What in the hell are you talking about?” 

Charles pressed his lips together in thought. “It’s like… fine motor control. You know how to wield a hammer. That’s all very well, but can you wield a scalpel?” 

“I knew a man in East Berlin who could tell you the answer to that, but he hasn’t been very talkative these last few years.” 

For a second Charles’ eyes were unreasonably sober and sympathetic. That shouldn’t be, Erik knew. Not to that comment from Erik’s glib, half-dizzy mind. For someone who typically radiated joviality like a lighthouse radiated in the night, Erik found it impossible that Charles might understand, intolerable that he might know the darkness in Erik’s mind. The very same darkness is what reminded him that Charles’ wasn’t human either, and that Charles’ ability had much more dangerous potential than Erik’s ever had shown. 

But the look disappeared instantaneously, melting into something less aware. His blue eyes blurred into Charles’ usual level of reckless kindness. 

“That’s not what I mean.” 

Charles suddenly took Erik’s forearm and pulled it down across the table. Erik was too stunned to stop him. Charles’ touches always surprised him in a way that had nothing to do with economy of movement. It was that they happened all. It was a relentless shock to think that someone, someone like bright and lovely Charles, found him companionable enough to brush up against him, nudge an elbow in his side, reach out to straighten a collar or a tie. 

It was a relentless shock because those touches could’ve been something Charles had dipped into Erik’s mind for. Erik was not used to getting what he desired, by chance or design, or by hook or by crook. 

Charles’ hand slid down the exposed underside of his arm, stopping at a gentle grip over Erik’s wrist. Charles’ thumb was right on top of his lifeline. 

“There is a minute amount of iron in human blood. Can you find it? Can you feel it?” 

Barely allowing any time to think about the question, Charles let go of Erik’s wrist, leaving him disproportionately vulnerable. 

Charles pointed to their booth’s individual light fixture against the wall. 

“The filaments in the light. Can you feel them? Can you dim the lights or turn them off just by shorting the copper wires?” Charles said excitedly. 

“Should I do this now?”

“Yes,” he said brightly.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not! It’s a test of your skill. If you use too much power you could bend the fixtures or blow the glass. Just dim the light. Just this light.” 

Erik wanted to argue. He didn’t want to be set tasks. But he knew quite well from the few short weeks he’d already spent with the man that it was in Charles’ nature to want to help and develop people. His chosen career as a professor was indeed a well chosen one. But he wasn’t some child to be led around. 

Erik looked around at the bar. It was all but cleared out at such a late hour. Well, late or early. There was the bartender, looking weary, two older lushes bent over the bar, and an obviously adulterous couple on the same side of a booth on the other side of the room. 

Erik concentrated on the cable of wires leading from the brass light fixture behind the drywall. It was difficult to parse through the individual wires, entwined tightly together. They were tiny little threads I could barely feel around the bigger distractions—the pipes behind the wall, the brass fixtures all around, steel girders in the throughout the twenty story building, thousands of screws and nails, the massive amounts of plumbing beneath their feet.

The lights suddenly dimmed in the entire left half of the barroom and their light bulb exploded in a flash next to them. 

Charles jumped back in his seat, but laughed it off. The five remaining people in the room were all looking toward Charles and Erik until their interest slowly and obviously diminished through Charles’ laughter. Erik felt a surge of inadequacy he hadn’t felt since he was a child. 

“A bit much, my friend. We can try again at another table. Or perhaps back in my room.” 

“No.”

“Well, you’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t try more than once.” 

“I don’t need to know how to turn off lights.” 

“No, I don’t suppose you need to, but don’t you think we should be exploring the width and breadth of our abilities?” 

“Isn’t that a little rich coming from you?”

“I beg your pardon.”

That made Erik smile. He was always appreciated when Charles was so unaware of his flaws. He was delighted that Charles even had flaws, considering the size of his virtues. 

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To find other mutants and help them along with their abilities?”

“Yes, I don’t—“

“What about you? You seem to have so—You don’t even understand how infuriating it is. When you do use your gift, it’s effortless. You don’t have a whiff of struggle on you. But you don’t use your gift. Not really. You’re almost eager to back away from it. But the worst part is that you act like you’ve nowhere left to go, while we have so much to learn. We all do. You can’t convince me that you and you alone have reached a plateau.”

Erik breathed heavily. It was perhaps the most he’d spoken to someone in one go for the first time in twenty years. 

Charles, for a moment, looked angry. But it was just as brief as the look earlier hand been. Erik was beginning to wonder concealed Charles was. 

“It’s different for me. What I can do… It’s different.”

“I don’t see how that’s right. It’s part of you, Charles. Like your left arm or your eyesight.” 

“It most certainly is not. You can’t—Are you really this eager to avoid simply trying out your abilities in something new? Something that isn’t wholly destructive?”

“You really are a hypocrite if you don’t think all your talk about fostering other mutant’s abilities is just another way to avoid your own.”

Charles’ face went very chilly and still. The only movement on his face was the flare of his nostrils. 

“I’m not going to talk about this anymore.”

“Oh, and we’re leaving it at that, are we?”

“Yes, I do think we should.” 

Charles’ voice was suddenly very tight and _British_ which only made Erik more angry. He was about to say something, when Charles reached into his breast pocket and pulled money from his money clip, dropping it on the table. There was something he wanted to say, some retort on the tip of his tongue to make Charles stay and talk but it was gone. 

Erik couldn’t think for the life of him what he was supposed to be talking about at all.

He went back to his room, six floors above the hotel bar, feeling vaguely deprived of something. It was only a niggling sensation, but stubbornly present. He went through his normal routine in his room. He inspected his suitcase, the windows and drawers, and the bed linens for disturbances. He felt for all the metal in the room to be sure of his familiarity. He recounted the money kept hidden in the lining of his suitcase for emergencies. He set out clothing for the next day, stripped, and showered. He put on his bedclothes and had a cigarette.

It was all part of his daily routine, but everything felt slightly off-kilter. Like the floor had been tilted without his knowledge. 

It wasn’t until he was nearing the end of his cigarette that he realized what was wrong. He was staring at the luminescent glow of the light bulb underneath the amber lampshade of the bedside lamp. Within the ceramic structure of the lamp’s base, Erik could feel the wires incased in plastic cord. He took a deep breath, firmly felt the pull of a thin copper thread, and just slightly twitched. 

The lamplight quietly clicked off. And what was missing came flooding back. 

Foregoing his bathrobe and any footwear, Erik hastily tore down the hallway to Charles’ room two doors over. He didn’t bother knocking, but pushed open the metal slide that locked the door and walked in unannounced. 

Charles didn’t look surprised, but had not bothered to compose himself either. There was a smoldering cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table, which surprised Erik as he’d never seen Charles smoke, next to a glass of whiskey and a bottle of ibuprofen, which did not surprise Erik as those were Charles’ regular nighttime companions. He looked up somewhat resignedly from a magazine. He was still dressed from earlier, but sitting on his bed without a jacket or shoes. His cuff links were discarded on the table and sleeves rolled up. 

It was the lowest state of undress Erik had ever seen Charles in. That was apparently enough, Erik realized resentfully, to deflate him. 

“That was dirty pool,” Erik said, rather than the rant he’d been abruptly preparing during his tramp down the hall. 

Charles dropped the magazine to the floor and nodded solemnly. 

“It was precisely what I didn’t want to do. What I always swear I won’t do. But you understand, don’t you, why I shouldn’t practice like you lot.” 

Erik frowned. “I don’t see what that has to do with shrugging me off like an ugly dance partner.” 

Charles laughed, but he looked upset by it. His eyes even went a little glassy.

“The entire fact that I exist, doing what I can do, is an ethical paradox. If we mutants are a product of nature and our abilities are a product of our natures, it stands to reason that the exercising of our abilities is only natural. Yet everyone is entitled to the expression of their free will. My ability is in direct conflict with that.”

There was a sense of nagging discomfort in that. And Erik had thought as much before, but without ever taking an effort to point it out or deliberate much further on the matter. The mere idea of Erik’s will being taken away from him again, by anyone, was enough to make his hackles rise. Yet instantly he wanted to defend Charles, to give that leeway to Charles. 

“That hasn’t stopped you from using it.” 

Charles sighed, finally moving and reaching for his cigarette. After a long drag, that looked more appealing than Erik wanted to admit, he cleared his throat. “I know. You called me a hypocrite. I reacted poorly because… because I am a hypocrite.” 

The admission obviously hurt Charles. Erik could sympathize with that. There were many things Erik knew about himself, but admitting them out loud—to another person even—was something he wasn’t sure he was capable of doing. 

He continued after a beat. “I don’t want to change people’s will. I don’t want to violate their privacy. At the same time, I couldn’t possibly stop. It’s the only way I…” He sighed and rubbed his hand tiredly against his face. “It’s not how I know other people. For so long that’s what I thought it was. I can see other people so clearly. But, I realized, it’s how I can understand myself. It’s the only way I can know who I am, but I’m not allowed—I can’t use it.”

His tone was so distant from its usual confidence and cheerfulness that Erik felt personally responsible for the change. There was a tight constriction in his chest. Flashes of Charles but mostly his mother rang through his mind for possible solutions to this. He knew he needed Charles to feel at ease with his ability, the same way he knew he needed to eat to live. 

He sat down on the bed next to Charles’ feet. 

“It’s your gift. It’s an extension of you. You have the right to use it, to explore your potential.” 

“What about the rights of other—“

“Oh, fuck your ethical paradox, Charles.” 

“Erik,” he chastised, but with a shine to his eyes.

“I mean it. You live inside the minds of other people. You know the kind of filth and barbarism they’re capable of, you know how easily they stomp on the rights of people beneath them, yet you won’t allow yourself the freedom to use the power you come by naturally. It’s a shame that you, or any of us, don’t feel the freedom to truly be ourselves.” 

Erik turned to see an almost shy smile on Charles’ lips. He was immensely proud to have put it there. 

“It still isn’t right. For one man to hold so much power over others. No matter what anyone else has done.” 

That emboldened Erik. He leaned closer and grabbed a hold of Charles’ upper arm, pulling him closer. 

“That power is your birthright. That’s the difference, Charles. We are the next stage of evolution; you said as much yourself.” Erik squeezed Charles’ arm when he should’ve let go. He recognized that he was far too close to Charles, but couldn’t tear himself away from the rapt blue of Charles’ eyes. “You deserve so much more.” 

Charles grinned despite himself, finally placing his other hand on Erik’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t encourage that sort of talk.” 

“But you do. You encourage me to be myself, despite knowing what I am. No one has ever done for me. You’ve encouraged me more than anyone I’ve ever known. I only wish I could return a fraction of that help to you.” 

“Oh, Erik.” Charles shook his head fondly as his hand slid up the slope of Erik’s shoulder to the sharp node on the top of his spine. “If you could see yourself the way I do, you would know it’s not misplaced faith, like you seem to think. I know how much good you have inside you.” 

Nervous fear bubbled up in Erik’s stomach. He felt torn between wanting to deny Charles’ claim and wanting desperately to prove him right. But, even then, in such a tender undeserved moment, Erik could also feel lust begin to seize him. Before he could yet again worry over Charles’ awareness about the focus of Erik’s desires, Charles lurched forward and locked his arms around Erik’s back. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for walking away earlier and pushing away your thoughts.”

Erik sat stricken on the bed. Charles’ face was pressed against his. Charles’ nose was right next to his ear and he could hear the huffs of air coming out of him. His soft hair brushed against Erik’s cheekbone. Their chests were snug, flat up against each other, drawing in and out where the other left off. Charles’ hands smoothed out an infinitesimal drift over his shoulder blades. 

Erik could feel his heart speeding up frighteningly fast. 

He put his arms around Charles, after what felt like hours of waiting, and new instantly he never wanted to let go again. He’d wondered what Charles would feel like in his arms so often; he had been beginning to think of Charles as nothing but ephemera. But of course he was wonderfully real and alive. Firm, but not hard. Slim, but not sharp. Erik’s hands roamed up and down Charles’ back—consistent, a slight curve, dependable. Unable to refrain, he nuzzled his nose into the soft line of Charles’ neck. 

A wave of solace washed over Erik. He could feel the weight of him drooping on Charles’ smaller shoulders and squeezed around him more tightly. He breathed in heavily. This is where he belonged. He wanted nothing more than to meet every inch of the man in his arms. He wanted to breathe in the skin of him. He wanted to caress every curve and plane of flesh. He wanted to kiss and suck and lap at every hidden place—the turn behind his jaw, the inside of his arms, the pliable meat of his cock.

His contentment was so great that for a moment Erik could forget the world was never in alignment with his desires. 

Then a slight twitch from Charles’ shoulder reminded him. Charles’ body tensed and Erik could almost feel his desire to escape. 

He withdrew, feeling cold and exposed, and with an urgent need to leave the room. He hadn’t wanted to reveal that part of himself to Charles. In all reality he assumed that Charles likely knew but that was different than foisting it on him so blatantly. 

He could probably depend on Charles to politely never mention it again. 

However, as he was collecting himself, Charles’ hand slid down the inside of his arm. Weight shifted on the bed and Charles settled next to him. 

“Erik.” There was a plaintive edge to his voice, but he didn’t say anything else. 

Erik shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’ll go.” 

But Charles’ grasp on his wrist tightened. “I’d rather you stay.” 

Needless to say, Erik’s gaze was swiftly brought from the floor to Charles once again. It wasn’t like Charles to pull a cold-hearted trick, but that was Erik’s first thought anyway. 

“I’ve never—“ Charles laughed nervously. “I’ve thought about it before. Because of your thoughts, I mean. It wasn’t like I’d never heard of it before you. It just never… peaked my interest, you might say. It wasn’t any stranger than any other given thought. Certainly less strange than some. But I—oh, this is terribly awkward.” 

“I thought you were trying to stay out of my head.” 

The words came out half torn from his dry throat and half full of wonderment, rather than warning. He knew it for the false austerity it was. They both had known Charles dipped in everyone’s mind now and again, but neither had taken much effort to stop it. 

“Trying,” Charles confessed. “Not succeeding. You’re far too captivating.” 

Erik huffed like the air had been punched out of him. 

“There is nothing within me to merit your—“

Charles planted an off-center, surprise kiss on Erik’s lips. It was more a token of friendship than anything, close-mouthed, chaste, and firm. It was more than enough to effectively derail Erik however. After leaning back from the kiss, Charles’ hand slid further up Erik’s arm.

“I was born with the ability to see the things people hide even from themselves. Assume, for the moment at least, that I know you better than you do yourself. And trust me.” 

Erik felt very much like the ground beneath his feet had suddenly disappeared. It felt like plummeting with no end in sight. He had not wanted anything for so long specifically because of that feeling. Wanting was a cruel sensation because it was followed so rarely by achieving that longing. Far more dangerous than hating or depriving or evading that desire was entertaining them.

But trusting him. Erik didn’t even know what that meant. 

“I want to give you what you want. But I—“ Charles choked out another nervous laugh, like he remembered something unfortunate. “I’ve never given… anything to another man, as it were.” 

“Charles…” 

“Before you object, it’s very important that you understand I can see your affection for me. I’ve never found it anything but beautiful.”

There was no dissent or rebuttal Erik could muster. 

He was curious about why and how this could happen. _Curious_ was something of an understatement. Ravenously curious would perhaps have been more accurate. He was wary of good fortune to say the least. More than that, Charles had explained nothing of the reasons for this somewhat striking shift in behavior. 

It could’ve been impulses he’d read from Erik’s mind and decisions Charles had kept to himself. It could’ve been a hidden desire that grew for years and finally manifested with the right occasion. 

Erik doubted that. 

Yet Erik felt if he pushed this new, weak emergence of luck too hard the possibility of being in Charles’ bed would disappear entirely. There was no telling what would happen with Shaw—if Erik would finally die, if Charles would, if they might part ways afterward. For all Erik knew his flaws and weaknesses, and for all Charles could not apparently see them, he never let opportunities pass him by. 

Erik embraced him like before, but this time he gave him the kiss he’d been waiting to give since Charles found him and pulled him from the ocean. Charles adapted quickly, letting Erik lean into him, pull passion from him. Charles’ hands clutched for purchase against Erik’s back and sides. Erik took a desperate gasp for air and mouthed kisses down Charles’ jaw and neck, all the while holding him tighter and tighter.

Charles came apart from Erik with a shudder. For a moment, Erik felt the familiar burn of loss, thinking it was all slipping away. But Charles didn’t flee or apologize. He prodded his own neck curiously, where Erik had been laying his attentions. 

“Is something wrong?”

Charles flattened his hands against the sides of Erik’s face, and swept a thumb over Erik’s upper lip. 

“You’ve got some stubble coming in.” An almost giddy laugh escaped Charles’ lips. “Never felt that from this end before.” 

They took from each other imploring, curious little kisses directed by Charles’ hands, breathing the same small space of honeyed air, as the world, as the future, as the room disappeared from Erik’s mind. 

“What comes next?” Charles said, pushing his forehead against Erik’s to indicate his meaning. “Show me what you want.” 

Charles laughed when all Erik could think of was _Everything_. 

“Erik, show me. Show me how you want to make love.” 

An image of Charles’ face, sweating and gasping Erik’s name, with eyes wide open came unbidden to the forefront of Erik’s mind. He thought that was necessary, seeing Charles’ face. But no one had ever wanted to make love to Erik. Plenty had wanted to fuck or screw, but he was fairly certain he’d never been involved in any love-making. Either fucking Charles or being fucked by Charles was more than Erik ever expected out of life, so he couldn’t say he had a preference for either. And taking Charles’ inexperience with men into account was probably wise. 

He conjured a scene in his head of Erik top of Charles, his legs pressing Charles in place, holding their cocks together, hot and sticky from come and sweat. Stroking him, stroking them off together. It wasn’t really important how. As long as they shared that bliss, and for the first time Erik would share it with someone he truly wanted. 

Charles nodded his head, looking a little dazed from the voyage into Erik’s desires. 

They stripped each other slowly, taking time to touch and gnaw toothlessly on new parts as they exposed themselves for the first time. When Erik would mouth at Charles’ clavicle, Charles would grip ponderously at all the dips and lines of Erik’s stomach. When Erik grazed his fingers across the pale, soft muscle of Charles’s thighs, Charles would kiss all the rough patches of Erik’s hands. 

Back in the still-pulsing, still-thinking part of Erik’s mind, he wanted to know how and why Charles was accustomed so well to this. If he was just reading Erik’s mind to know what to do so well, or if switching from women to men simply wasn’t that difficult a feet to master. 

But he pushed that away. 

When Charles was finally completely nude, just as firm and creamlike as imagined, it was obvious he was also completely flaccid. He looked a little nervous in the face of Erik’s own heavily red piece. Erik smiled and sat him on the bed, eager to deal with something he felt more comfortable with. 

It didn’t take long getting Charles ready with his mouth. He sucked and lipped at Charles’ prick until it filled his mouth and started leaking and moaned Erik’s name. Charles’ hands scrabbled at his shoulders, flicking beseechingly through his hair. Being between Charles’ thighs, sinking his nose into the small patch of dark brown hairs at the base of his cock, being alone with Charles and pleasure was almost relaxing. 

When Erik climbed on top of Charles, stroked them together with spit and precome, and Charles pulled him by the shoulders bringing him closer, for a wild moment he thought if this was where he died, his life might have been worth living. They locked their mouths together, legs entwined. They rutted up against each other, greedily seeking every available kind of touch. Erik felt high, so gone on Charles he could no longer if they were on Charles’ bed or still back in the bar. 

Erik’s entire body jerked forward violently when he came, covering Charles’ whole body with his. Charles’ pet the hollow of his back with one hand and squeezed the back of his thigh with the other. He whispered, “Erik, you’ve got me, it’s okay,” breathily into Erik’s ear. 

Erik stroked Charles to completion, still mesmerized by the sight of his semen on Charles’ belly. 

Without words, Charles’ persuaded Erik to stay what was left of the night. He was the one who navigated cleaning their bodies of mess, because Erik was in a daze. He felt entirely unreal, loose-limbed and punchy. 

He felt like he could sleep for ages, but he didn’t. 

Erik stayed awake long after Charles slumbered in his arms weighing his luck, his unbelievable luck. He stayed awake until the temporary peace had time to retreat, and his familiar suspicion, that only Charles usually managed to beat away, returned. He managed to wonder again.

Charles had never been with a man before, why would he pick Erik, of all people? How had he felt so at ease with another man? They always argued about what to do with the CIA, how to address widespread knowledge of mutants. Had he sussed out Erik’s weakness just to sway him and use it against him? 

Erik remembered the nature of Charles’ mutation, and flashes of what the Frost woman had done to him on Shaw’s boat. 

What if they hadn’t shared anything physical at all? What if Charles could just tell him they made love and he’d forever believe it?

The idea made Erik nauseous. 

He looked at the man sleeping in his arms. He looked as beautiful and guileless as always. Erik knew that meant nothing. Erik knew anyone could betray you. He didn’t want to believe that of Charles. Despite, Charles having already admitted to using his mind control, Erik wasn’t even convinced it was likely. But it was still a possibility. 

A possibility he would never be sure of if Charles didn’t want him to know. 

Erik huddled closer to Charles, squeezing his chest more tightly until he could feel Charles’ heart beating through his back. Not long ago, when even faced with the mild possibility he was facing of being tricked or beguiled or side-tracked, Erik would not have taken the risk. Erik would have ignored his desires and focused on his goals. 

This was a chance he would take for Charles, even if it would end in his undoing.

**Author's Note:**

> ~*~
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
